Future crazy chicken lady

[Ribbit21]

I've got 13 chicks coming April 25th. Eeekk!! Half will be mine and the other half I'm raising for my brother. I've got quite an assortment of flavors too. I couldn't decide when to get all egg layers or add a few dual-purpose birds.

2 Easter Eggers
Silver Cuckoo Marans
2 Buff Orpington
Golden Laced Wyandotte
Double-Laced Barnevelder
Barred Rock
Welsummer
Black Australorp
Delaware
New Hampshire Red
1 Mystery chick

Planned on building a coop, but didn't have the time this year so I bought a pre-made one. Just need to paint it and seal up some spots.

I'll be keeping 6 and my brother will get the rest. Hopefully I have some friendly ones in the bunch to give to my brother. He just had a baby and my sister-in-law is not exactly an animal person and that's saying it lightly. She won't even go to the zoo because she's afraid of the animals. But my brother is excited and I'll be helping them with the birds until they are comfortable with them.

 

[Tyrion]

Looks like your going to have your hands full ..have fun..I always liked my moms chickens when she had them

 

[CrazyBirdChick]

Can't wait to see pics!

 

[sunnysmom]

How exciting! I love chickens. I used to play with the chickens on my great uncle's farm when I was a kid. I keep telling my fiancé that at some point in my life, I will have silkie chickens. I'm kind of obsessed with them.

 

[LilSprout]

Chickens are really neat and I'd absolutely love to own a few one day! Please share pictures of the little bundles of fluffy joy!

 

[jmfleish]

OMG!Youre going to love them and their eggs! Play with them a lot while they're chicks and they'll continue to be really friendly. Giving them lots of food by hand helps too. Chickens are the most awesomest!

 

[Ribbit21]

I can't wait! I need to get my butt moving and finish painting the coop.

 

[expressmailtome]

Congratulations on your new additions! Will you know the genders of the chickens?

 

[Milo]

Chickens are so great, just be sure that coop is super secure! Raccoons are super persistent! What sort of run do you have for them?

 

[Ribbit21]

Congratulations on your new additions! Will you know the genders of the chickens?

All girls! Our town doesn't allow roosters.

Chickens are so great, just be sure that coop is super secure! Raccoons are super persistent! What sort of run do you have for them?

Strangely enough we don't have raccoons in our neighborhood. I'm guessing because there are no mature trees. We are missing all tree creatures LOL. I saw a squirrel once about 5 years ago and the poor thing looked terrified. Still going to make it so it can't be dug into by critters. We do have coyotes in the area but the yard is fenced in so they stay out.

Coops looks similar to this one with an attached run. We are really limited with what we can put up because of our homeowner's association.

 

[WeasleyLover]

I'm so jealous! I am a chicken-less crazy chicken lady. LOL. One day I will live some place where I can have them!

Congratulations! You must post lots of pictures of the little peepers!!

 

[Milo]

That is lucky! I wouldn't assume anything though! Peeps are a lot of things but they are not fierce they're going to be so much fun! You'll have people coming out of the woodwork asking for eggs we have an australorp, EE, amberlink, and a polish all hens, they're really a hoot! I can't wait for you to get them, peeps are the best

 

[Milo]

After giving this some thought, I wanted to bring up veterinary care for your chickens. It usually costs the same as for parrots, unless you have a farm doctor that will also see them. Reproductive issues are the number one reason we see chickens in our hospital, and while we can fix them, it's definitely not cheap. For instance, we had a chicken in not too long ago that was eggbound. The exam was 76, x-rays to confirm egg and egg location were 140, sedation was 15. We ended up doing an ovocentesis which was about 200 and then there were meds to send home.

Unfortunately backyard chickens fall into a gray area, people want to treat them as pets but don't want to pay when they get sick. I"m not saying you fall into this category, but it is a very common occurrence. You'll see a lot of suggestions on the internet for home remedies and such for chickens, I can tell you (like for our parrots) that those usually end in unneeded suffering for chickens.

I still love chickens and think that more people should have them, but I wanted to bring up a factor that many don't consider when they bring in backyard poultry

 

[alshgs]

My grandpa had about 50-60 that he and my son had together. After his stroke, he rehomed a lot of them and then a fox got the rest

 

[Ribbit21]

After giving this some thought, I wanted to bring up veterinary care for your chickens. It usually costs the same as for parrots, unless you have a farm doctor that will also see them. Reproductive issues are the number one reason we see chickens in our hospital, and while we can fix them, it's definitely not cheap. For instance, we had a chicken in not too long ago that was eggbound. The exam was 76, x-rays to confirm egg and egg location were 140, sedation was 15. We ended up doing an ovocentesis which was about 200 and then there were meds to send home.

Unfortunately backyard chickens fall into a gray area, people want to treat them as pets but don't want to pay when they get sick. I"m not saying you fall into this category, but it is a very common occurrence. You'll see a lot of suggestions on the internet for home remedies and such for chickens, I can tell you (like for our parrots) that those usually end in unneeded suffering for chickens.

I still love chickens and think that more people should have them, but I wanted to bring up a factor that many don't consider when they bring in backyard poultry

I stay away from chicken groups for that reason. Too much bad information. I live in farmer land LOL so there a quite a few farmer vets in the area. I actually prefer a farm vet because, although I hate to say this here, but these chickens are not pets. I'm sure I will keep my favorite ones, but in reality they have a job to do. This is sort of my way of knowing where my food comes from and making sure they have awesome lives.

 

[Milo]

That's totally fair for sure! It's good that you're realistic about it too. Just make sure your farm vets will take care of flocks of chickens if you haven't already! That's an issue around here that comes up a lot.

 

[Macaw Lover]

There seem to be a lot of coyotes around here too, I have seen a couple at night and my neighbor leaves really early in the am and he would see them regularly. Over the years I have found pretty good size piles of poop in my back yard and I have a 5 ft high fence so I Googled how high a coyote can jump a fence so don't assume your fence will keep them out as you need to set up extra protections.

Congrats on the chicks and enjoy them.

 

[Macaw Lover]

I added a link for a YouTube video but look how the post showed up and without the link.